A new version of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), v22 is now available.
Here’s a link to the Release Notes.
Download and Installation:
Clicking this link will download the EXE.
Or you can use winget to install the latest version:
winget install Microsoft.SQLServerManagementStudio.22
The installer will prompt you for which components that you would like to include. From the Workloads page, there’s ‘AI Assistance’, ‘Business Intelligence’, ‘Hybrid and Migration’, and ‘Code Tools’. I’ll select all of them, but you may only be interested in certain components. I’ll go over some of the SSMS CoPilot capabilities, so select ‘AI Assistance’ if you are interested in that.
You can also select individual components, or language packs.
On first time opening, you’re prompted to sign-in with a Microsoft or GitHub account, but you can skip that step.
Features:
The last (v21) version of SSMS had Copilot support, but you had to use Copilot running in Azure.
With v22, you can use GitHub Copilot. There will be a Copilot chat window available. In the next section I’ll go over setting that up, if you are interested to try it.
A lot of the features have to do with the Vector data, which will be added in SQL Server 2025. I blogged about the Vector data type earlier.
Other Features:
*) When JSON values are returned in a query, you can click on that value in the query results grid to open the JSON document in a new tab (The same functionality as with XML values).
*) You can right-click on an execution plan and open the plan in a new tab (Show Execution Plan in New Tab)
*) As part of the ‘Code Tools’ workflows from installation, there is a Query Hint Recommendation tool. This will analyze a select query, and let you know if there are query hints that can improve query performance. Select the query that you want to analyze, and go to Tools, Query Hint Recommendation Tool in the menu bar.
CoPilot:
After installation, once SSMS started, I had a window open on the right for Copilot, allowing you to sign in or to create an account.
If you’ve closed that or otherwise don’t see it, you can click on the Copilot button in the top right corner.
When you click the down-arrow, you’ll see an entry to ‘Open Chat Window to Sign In’.
You can sign in if you already have a Copilot account. I don’t have a Copilot account, so I’ll click on ‘Sign up for Copilot Free’. I’ll sign in with my GitHub credentials, and authorize Visual Studio.
I started by asking Copilot to list all of the databases in my active connection. It wasn’t able to see the databases in my default instance, even though I was connected. However, once I opened a blank query window, Copilot was able to list out all of the databases on that instance.
You can use a free Copilot account, but you’re capped at a certain number of request per month (50 as of Nov 2025). Keep in mind that one request in this CoPilot window may generate multiple calls to the service.
You can also get a Pro account free for 30 days.
Here’s a link with more information on SSMS and Copilot.
Links:
sqlreitse.com – SSMS 22 preview 1 first impressions
Brent Ozar – SSMS v22 Query Hint Recommendation Tool: The Invasion of the Query Hints
SQL Rob 